E3 2013: EA Press Event Recap

June 10, 2013

Electronic Arts made a strong showing today at E3 2013, that is if you’re a sports fan. EA debuted plenty of highly-anticipated games, with awesome first looks, but the day truly belong to EA Sports for actual content.

This of course mans a slightly uneven recap, because I don’t understand sports.

With that, let’s dive in!

PopCap Games takes the stage

EA started their day with a surprising turn, having PopCap Games come out to debut Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare, a 3^rd-person action/shooter. The game appears to play very similarly to the Orcs Must Die series, and is full of plenty of the brilliant humor that PvZ fans have grown to love.

Before departing, PopCap co-founder John Vechey excitedly jumped into the air, announcing Peggle 2! While nothing more was said on the subject, the excitement shown makes me excited.

Battlefield 4, Battlefront, bioware, Dice, Dragon Age, E3, E3 2013, EA, Electronic Arts, Mirror's Edge, Plants vs Zombies, PopCap Games, Press Event, recap, star wars — This is how you announce a game! (Provided by Kotaku.com)

TitanFall

More of the upcoming Respawn Entertainment title TitanFall was shown off next, elaborating on the info debuted during the Microsoft panel. We’ll have more on TitanFall in a write-up later on.

It’s real!

Star Wars: Battlefront is back and Hothier than ever! Only a short trailer was shown, but that’s more than enough for me. Dice is a company that I truly would trust with this franchise; can’t wait to see what comes of it.

Racing the Movies

Need for Speed Rivals made its debut, showcasing the ability to seamlessly blend two different single-player experiences into one multiplayer game.

Aaron Paul, of Breaking Bad hopped on stage to showcase the upcoming Need for Speed movie, in what can only be described as a bafflingly unnecessary name-dropping tie-in moment. Weirdly enough, this wasn’t the most pointless/whorish moment of the event. Please search for “Drake” or “Fifa” in this article for that.

Fires Above; Morrigan out front

Morrigan is back! Dragon Age III: Inquisition has finally debuted, narrated by the magnificent voice of Claudia Black. The trailer featured no actual gameplay, but it is worth nothing that Morrigan was not created in CGI, but actual in-game assets. Impressive stuff from what was my most anticipated game of this year, but is now my most anticipated game of 2014!

Worth the wait.

Time to Sports!

Now we get to most people’s most dreaded component of EA’s press events, EA Sports. I don’t understand sports, so I will save the specifics of each game for articles about them that should be featured by the day’s end.

NBA Live 14, Madden NFL 25, the next UFC game and Fifa 14: Drake’s Quest were all featured, using vague marketing schlock. Honestly the only highlight was the confusion when “DRAKE” appeared on the screen and everyone momentarily thought it was a new Uncharted, not some confused rapper claiming that Fifa is his life.

If Fifa was his life, why would he call it soccer, not football?

Command the Troops

Well this is a first: I’m actually planning on picking up a Battlefield title. Between gorgeous visuals, the new “Commander Mode” and destructive environments I think I may finally be sold on Battlefield 4!

Ending the show with #2

Mirror’s Edge 2! Mirror’s Edge 2! Mirror’s Edge 2! Mirror’s Edge 2! Mirror’s Edge 2! Mirror’s Edge 2! Mirror’s Edge 2! Mirror’s Edge 2! Mirror’s Edge 2! Mirror’s Edge 2!

Sorry, I’m better now. Yeah, we knew it was coming, and there was only a short trailer, but the game looks great. Can’t wait to see more!

Well that covers EA at E3. Make sure you check back later as we’ll have our Microsoft, Sony, and Ubisoft recaps up on the site. Also check back throughout the week as we’ll be featuring articles discussing thoughts on all the games — or as many as we can get to — shown off this week.

If you’re on Twitter you can also follow me @BearPunch for up to the second thoughts and random gibberish about the press events.

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Joshua Silverman

Website

"A man of many talents; Joshua is a gamer, writer, Sith Lord in training and a wannabe Time Lord. Assuming the mantle of Director of Gaming for Geek News Network, Joshua has made it his goal to bring the gaming division of GNN forward.

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You can read more of Joshua’s semi-regular thoughts on Twitter @BearPunch. He also co-hosts the GNN Gaming Podcast and the ”Constantly Calibrating Podcast.

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